A Letter To Everyone Who Thinks That Feminism Is Synonymous With Man-Hating

Here's feminism 101 for you. Let's get the facts out of the way - feminism simply means equality. We are not shouting slogans implying that women are superior in any way, shape or form. We are simply saying that men aren't. Just to make it clear, by saying that men aren't superior, we are not insinuating that they are inferior. When it comes to rights, those are not the two extremes to prescribe to. Once again, what we mean is that men and women, and everybody else, are equal. Save the argument that the two are biologically different (and a part of that is that women are more emotionally driven while men function on logic). We don't discount that. All we are saying is "different" does not come with in-built hierarchy.

You accuse us of many things - we are too emotional, too loud, too bitter, too self-centric, even sexist ourselves, putting men down. Understand where we come from, and the generations and years of struggle that we still carry the ripples of. There was a time, when our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were "burning bras," when women were not allowed to vote, or work. We had no autonomy other than as mothers. Our bodies were considered shameful. Female pleasure was an alien concept. Menstruation was considered evil. We were not allowed to step out of the house un-chaperoned by a man, let alone wear what we wanted. Times may be different now (that to only in some parts of our country), our voices heard in some quarters, our presences felt in the sciences and arts, but this wasn't always the case. We - the women before us - had to fight for all of it. We were oppressed, and that's a fact you cannot alter.

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So, yes, we ARE angry. We are angry that we had to struggle to be seen as intelligent, brave, capable citizens of the world. We are angry that our sexuality has been suppressed, and our bodies objectified, all at the same time. We are angry that our pinnacle has been pre-defined as motherhood, even when some of us may not have a maternal instinct. We are angry that for a woman, "ambitious" is an extraordinary adjective, while for a man, it's an expectation. We are angry that we have had to, and continue to work twice as much as men to get a job, keep a job, and earn the same amount of money. You see, there is inequality, and we are more often than not on the wrong end of stick.

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But, let us say it one more time - what we hate is patriarchy, not men. We do recognise the difference. That said, we find ourselves having to fight men simply because they don't understand how deeply patriarchy has affected us. When we argue with you over our concerns for safety, emotional callousness that we see in some men, our right to choose, your tarnished sense of humour replete with sexist jokes, and your disregard for "women's problems," we are not fighting you. We are fighting what patriarchy has done to us - to ALL of us. Look how it has made you unaware of what half of the population goes through. Look how it has deprived you of the freedom to be vulnerable. Look how it has made the female body - the same body that excites you - alien. Look how it has suppressed you, too. What patriarchy has elevated in us - our emotional intelligence - it has suppressed in you. What it has elevated in you - your autonomy - it has suppressed in us. See what we are saying?

So, here's the thing - we are using our emotional intelligence to understand sexism, and to fight it. We have used the "strength of a woman" to break out of the boxes that patriarchy had carefully crafted for us. We want the same for men.

Let me also point out that it's not just men we "hate on", as you so often tell us. There are a lot of women who carry the baton of patriarchy proud on their sanskaari shoulders, shouting slogans of paramparaa and tehzeeb. We don't even bother to engage them because that kind of internalisation terrifies us and repulses us. It's not hatred that we spew on you. Underneath our impatient arguments and seemingly one-sided fights, what we are really trying to communicate is that all of us are in this together. Our liberation is yours, too!